Ilitaw at Palayain Karen at Sherlyn!

June 25, 2008, the second anniversary of the forced disappearance of Karen and Sherlyn, two University of the Philippines students, accused of no more than standing on the side of the most oppressed sectors of Philippine society. Karen and Sherlyn were snatched in Bulacan, along with peasant Manuel Merino, from a rural farming community. To this day, Karen and Sherlyn have not been resurfaced, and their fate is unknown.

On this day Aiyanas and I attended a forum and protest rally at the UP, to call for the surfacing of Karen and Sherlyn, to educate the students and faculty of UP on the human rights situation in the Philippines, and to demonstrate to UP administrators and the government of the Philippines that political persecution and terrorizing of progressive forces must be stopped!

Context:

It is in the context of the daily human rights violations, of forced displacement due to military counterinsurgency and corporate plunder of natural resources, such as Canadian mining operations, that the struggle for genuine human rights, for land reform, and for national liberation arises.

Recent trends in poverty exacerbate a nation already pushed to the brink by political corruption, IMF/WB structural adjustment conditionality, WTO enforced trade liberalization, deregulation and privatization, and an intensified counter-insurgency program.

Annual average incomes have been dropping, from 145,000 Pesos in 2000 to 125,000 Pesos in 2006; this sum amounts to a National average daily income of Canadian $255 per month. 10%, or a full 1/5th of the workforce is working overseas in order to send home the vital remittances which keep the economy of the Philippines afloat.

It was in the context of the complete abdication of responsibility for the masses of Filipinos by the Gloria Macapagal Regime that UP students Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan decided to dedicate their talents and energies towards serving the people through legal means. Sherlyn, an award-winning athlete, was the Basic Masses Integration Officer of the UP Student Council, responsible for connecting students with the lived conditions and struggles of workers and peasants, joining in pickets and actions, as well as taking students out on exposure trips to the communities and the countryside. Karen was a generous-hearted social sciences student who actively supported the struggles of the workers and peasants, and who participated in a rural exposure trip. It was on such a trip to an impoverished community to integrate with peasants, that these two bright young women were snatched by military forces and ‘disappeared’.

Since Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took power in 2001 following the ouster of President Joseph Estrada, there have been more than 900 extrajudicial killings, including leaders and activists from the trade-union, peasant, women, health and student sectors as well as from progressive political party lists. As the rate of the killings has decreased (but not stopped) in response to international pressure generated by grassroots and establishment human rights groups, the rate of enforced disappearances has simultaneously increased with 193 victims to date, most of them in 2006 and 2007 when international attention was most focused on the human rights situation in the Philippines. Yet, already this year there have been 13 extrajudicial killings and 1 forced disappearance!

All sectors of progressive Filipinos have felt the impact of the red-baiting, intense harassment, and political terrorism of the GMA regime. Both students and teachers alike have been targeted. On January 10, 2007, Jose Maria Sui, a 53-year-old university professor, was shot dead in his classroom on the University of Eastern Philippines North Samar campus. There have been 9 documented killings of teachers, and one teacher forcibly disappeared, according to the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), a legal organization of progressive teachers. Two of those victims of extrajudicial killings were members of the ACT National Congress.

There is a direct relationship between the black propaganda of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and those victims of extrajudicial killings. Jose Maria Sui was directly named in a red-baiting flier distributed on campus, and the very next week became a victim of extrajudicial killings. On the website of the AFP, progressive activists and popular organizations will be directly named as a de-facto list of political targets.

After the forum and memorial performances dedicated to Karen and Sherlyn, we piled out of the auditorium and marched to the Student Union building with the rallying cry:
“Karen at Sherlyn! Palayain!”